REAL VERSES ACADEMIC WORLD IN INDIGENOUS CULTURAL STUDIES

Mukesh Devrari 

This article deals with two presentations by Professor Lidia Guzy who teaches at the University of Cork, Ireland, before going deeper into her insights and research. First, a query has to be answered, she repeated it thrice as an allegory that the scholars of religion do not know anything about what happens after death at the end of her last presentation on the second day of the seminar. ‘They simply do not know’ she forcefully emphasized and now nobody has the courage to spread lies. It is an easy question, if treated non-academically, and deserves an easy non-scholarly answer. Nothing happens after human beings die. Human life is like a candle flame. When fuel heads towards the end, it just goes away. It just ends right there. In the absence of an empirical answer, it is perhaps the best possible answer one can accept without being accused as irrational. Like we all accept Big Bang theory, knowing fully- well that our future generations will be laughing at us for having such a belief. 

Now about her presentations, in her first presentation titled ‘Adivasi Art and the New Museum Movement in India’ she mentioned the two museums developed by Anthropological Survey of India. One is based in Bhopal and other is based in Jagdalpur. What is more interesting is that these museums are like human zoos. Tribal communities are invited there to construct the exact models of their mud houses, paintings or other art forms carrying their identities and most of the times ignorance and lack of education. The peculiarity of behaviour of a community branded as Tribal perhaps always baffles white man.  

There is no unanimity yet that romance with poverty, ignorance, illiteracy and superstition will do no good to anyone. Tribal communities in India share all national Indian characteristic that too to a greater degree. Perhaps these characteristics are hunger, nakedness, illiteracy and lack of access to materialistic pleasures. These are the identifiable traits of people across India.

According to a section of the western intelligentsia, “tribal community and their pathetic practices arising out of backwardness and lack of exposure to modern ideas must be glorified and documented”. Perhaps because then it could be boasted in high profile seminars in glittering auditorium halls of western universities. It is correct it has to be documented before it completes evaporates from the ground. However, it is not going to happen so early.  

The industrialization has yet to touch this vast nation known as India. Prof. Lidia enthusiastically described the importance of preservation efforts of unique knowledge of tribal communities through the museums. At the same, she also noted it herself that these museums must not be described as if it is a human zoo in the public sphere, otherwise effort and support by the state will become difficult proposition.

She was full of affection and love for tribal communities. She perhaps sincerely thinks real interests of tribal lies in maintaining their culture, their languages and their own practices. According to her, it will be rather unfortunate if tribal communities become the victims of homogenization program of a neo-liberal war machine. It becomes intriguing for the listeners whether these anthropologists love the peculiar behaviour of Tribal community or they love and respect them as a human being. It is like a love for the caged parrot by it's master. The parrot will be well off if allowed to fly freely in the sky.          

On the second day of the seminar, Professor Lidia, who is very down to earth and polite scholar presented her paper on Anthropology of Sound and Music: With Examples from Western Orissa. In the initial part of her paper, she established the relationship between music, culture, ethnicity and geography. Her focus was more on human dimensions of music rather than the non-human dimension. She herself said that.

Prof. Lidia with the help of writings of scholars of anthropology claimed that music is culturally constructed sonic order. It is strictly a cultural phenomenon and carries social structure. It is a total social fact. It is a total cultural language and so on. She quoted Steven Felt, John Blacking, Marshall McLuhan and others to create theoretical underpinnings for her ethnographic study on one of the Orissa based Tribe.    

She also drew the attention of participants on one peculiar fact as identified by Steven Felt that nature contributes to creating cultural ecology or to put it simply nature creates a culture of its own. It remains visible in the tribal songs. It is present there. It is invisible, intangible and implicit, but it exists. It is reflected in the music of the tribal community, who remains in close proximity with nature. Musical ecology is part of the creation of nature.

One of the unique and intriguing facts about researchers is that they possess this uncanny ability to produce a dense language. Even Hegel will be ashamed of the difficulty level of his writings, but with a more serious note, researchers conduct an in-depth study of their subjects and go through the writing of various other authors.

Ideas and observations are like poetry for thinkers. It comes to individuals in their moments of deep involvement with the subject matter of their study. While researching topics of their interests researchers observe and traverse this territory of ideas and knowledge. Finally, when they come back they reflect the writings of many others and supplement it with their own studies to express and share newly created knowledge. So it becomes tricky for general readers or listeners to follow the scholars.  

In short, this above paragraph was an excuse, why there will be no more discussion on the theoretical underpinnings developed by Prof. Lidia for her paper. It becomes difficult for an author who has no understanding of the academic world of anthropology.  Chances are very strong that she may have said blue in her presentation and this author may have written here that she had actually talked about green. So advance apologies.

After her presentation, she played a clip of music. It was tune played by one of the Orissa based tribes and she asked for the audience reaction. This author has replied that the music played by her was horrible and that this kind of music is a prisoner of its context. Unless she gives prior information to listeners that this tribal music is played specifically during ceremonial prayers. Perhaps no one will be able to identify its usage.

Many may claim otherwise but music has this innate capacity to carry meanings, it is not always a cultural construct, it has the potential to be acultural. In many other music forms only by listening tunes, one can identify whether it expresses happiness, sorrow, loneliness or any other such emotions. It is only a guess by the author. Limit of most of the tribal music is that it lacks this character. Otherwise, popular culture practitioners would have hijacked it or incorporated it long ago.

“Her reaction was very scholarly. Cultural hegemony is a ninetieth-century phenomenon. Now it is out thing and cultural diversity is in thing. Everyone here knows everything about popular culture. Protection and preservation of cultural minorities require perhaps in-depth studies of cultural minorities to protect their specific set of knowledge. All the “Hegemons” want tribal cultures to die. Your voice perhaps represents the interest of neo-liberals. Perhaps you are no different. You are using the world ‘we’ but who is this ‘we’. Who is perhaps represented by you?” Then she argued how this neo-liberal approach is faulty, which this author could not recall while writing this article, but he listened to Prof. Lidia properly.    

While this debate was going on many scholars, who earn their bread and bread by studying and teaching the peculiarities of folk and tribal studies and other cultures were smiling. This author has no idea whether they were smiling at the discussion or the shallowness of his reasoning which was perhaps weak as he has no grounding in the anthropology and its research tradition.  

(Article is fully based on memory.)

end.